I don't know. There are ways to measure FAR (eg. the "tuning" companies have to do this when they are setting up a car for a turbo). But I don't know exactly how they do it.

I think the ECU measures FAR by throttle angle and feedback from the O2 sensor in the exhaust manifold.

 

Fair enough. Thanks

 

Most fuel injected vehicles' PCMs will compensate for a lean or rich ratio over time, so i'm sure you would have to clear the fuel trims once in a while to get it to work.

 

I don't see direct mixing (water into fuel??) as a process that would work.
Direct water injection (as in water being directly injected into the combustion chamber or intake manifold) can be used to prevent detonation with lean fuel air mixtures. There are a couple companies that offer systems for cars running a lot of boost. Very small amounts of water are injected in the intake or directly into the combustion chamber - through a separate injector (similar to a fuel injector).
You could possibly run extremely lean mixtures in a normally aspirated engine through this method. Water mist is a more potent anti-detonation method than dumping fuel into the mix. Water and alcohol injection was used in a number of aircraft around WWII, during takeoff when the engines were pushed to their maximum power settings. Many of these engines were turbo and supercharged, and the water and/or alcohol injection allowed aircrews to squeeze every ounce of power out of their recip engines, without detonation.

Here's one of the companies that offer such systems for cars:
http://www.aquamist.co.uk/

 

If it sounds too good to be true, it is.

 

M.I.T. did a study on the effects of browns gas on Internal combustion engines, and as i recall found that a mixture of about 25%hho in the air improved fuel consumption by about 30%and reduce CO by 80%

p.16ish onward if you really care contains the work my MIT
http://www.psfc.mit.edu/research/pla...DF/dan_cps.pdf


can this be done w/ a car, an s2000 in particular? dunno. to get 25% mix of hho gas @ crusing highway speed (4k rpms) you would need to make about 70 liters per min of HHO gas, which is A LOT. the best i've done w/ a unit i could fit around my supercharger was 4 liters/min, and that was @ about 40amps, way too much. could definatelty go higher with more electrolyte+heat too. but hell, i'd settle for 20% more gas milage if i could.

the concept is simple and makes sense. there is no confliction w/ the use of HHO and the conservation of energy as people so often like to point out. yes it takes more energy to seperate water into browns gas then you can get out of it as a result of resistance in wires, loss to heat, and in the case of installing in a car inefficent alternators. BUT, the idea here is that the energy you're using to split the water is far less then the potential energy being waste by your motor in unburnt fuel. hho just acts to help make a more full combustion in the chamber, and try to use all the gasoline that goes in, meaning you can use less and get the same results. the baking soda thing is not really making any more gas, its not like the soda+vinegar thing where you made a volcano in school. the baking soda is an elecrolyte, allowing more amps to be used and thus more gas to be produced. i use lye, its a more potent electrolyte, the best i've tried yet.

my main concern is that the unburnt fuel in the chamber serves a purpose. correct me if im wrong, but part of the job of the unburnt fuel is to cool the combustion? introducing browns gas and burning more fuel w/ each firing would create hotspots on the pistons no?

 

That's not a study, that's a pitch. Big difference. And the point there was that with higher compression engines (made possible by hydrogen injection) you could get more efficiency. These generators people are putting into their cars are not increasing the compression ratio, and so they are not acheiving the benefit mechanism described in that pitch.

 

This MIT "study" appears to be something very different (plasma fuel reformer that gets hydrogen from diesel?) from the concept of breaking water into hydrogen and oxygen via electrolysis and adding them into your car's intake, which is what the OP is talking about.

The H20->H2 + O2 via electrolysis concept WILL NOT WORK as has already been pointed out. The electrical drain on the alternator to do this (greater load on the engine) will require more energy than burning the H2 + O2 will give back.

 

Water injection was used on one of the Evo's wasn't it? While water injection makes sense and has it's benefits, just sticking the water hose into the gas tank is crazy. The fuel and water won't mix, and you'll just end up at the repair shop.

 

agreed. splitting takes more energy then it can give back. running a car on just hho would, as you said, be taking a step back since energy would be wasted in the process. but can the use of hho as a supplement in the air used by an ICE create a net gain? is the wasted energy (unburnt gasoline from incomplete detonation) greater than the energy lost in the inperfect process of the creation and burning of the hho?